Not Alone
by MacyBear17
Summary: A slightly mature Parker's POV look at the various stages of a relationship between everyone's favorite thief and hitter.
1. Chapter 1

_**A/N: Hi there... I know, I know... I have to finish the rest of my stories before I start a new one but I just couldn't resist. Rest assured, I will get to each and every one of them and give them the attention and time they deserve. But for now, enjoy...**_

_**And plz remember to review your thoughts and ideas... They make my day. :)**_

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><p>Lightning flashed, followed by resounding thunder, jerking Parker awake from an uneasy doze. She noiselessly got out of bed and picked her way through the room, not wanting to wake the man who was finally resting after spending most of the night soothing her from her nightmares. Another flash of lightning silhouetted her slim body against the backdrop of the big picture window she'd had installed in almost every room in her new apartment.<p>

The workmen had looked at her as if she had dropped down form Mars when she'd insisted that she needed a huge window in every major room in her house, most of them not even having good views. Not even one of them knew why she'd insisted on placing her windows just so... or that all of them had mechanical ziplines attached to them on the outside, a small unobtrusive device that attached to the window ledge, allowing her to be winging her way across the rooftops whenever she wanted or needed to.

Most of the times Parker had used her ziplines in the past had been off the job. She'd loved the feeling of freedom it afforded her to just jump out into the open air... The feeling of being the only person in the whole world with that freedom and not having anything or anyone holding her back.

Parker had always been all alone. The small, blonde master thief had known from a very early age that the only person she could trust and depend on in this world, was herself. Giving even a small portion of her trust to any one else inevitably led to pain and misery for her and there was no way she was going to risk all that again.

She had always worked alone, ever since she'd left Archie at the age of 14. She'd run away from her eighth foster home at the age of 11 after having been beaten by her drunk foster father for the umpteenth time and had been found by Archie Leach. He'd taken her in and trained her in everything he knew, making her into the master thief she was today. But then he'd decided to go back to his real family and she'd once again been left alone and in the dark... feeling as if her whole world had just decided to turn its back on her.

For quite some time after that she'd tried unsuccessfully to fend for herself by doing some odd jobs here and there. But all that had done was to make her feel as if she was trying to live somebody else's life... Trying to fit into someone else's room... and the walls were just closing in on her, making her choke and want to run out that second.

That was when she'd found the only stable sense of freedom that she'd ever had in life. Base jumping and Rappelling. One of the kids in the crew she'd been working with then was as much a head case as she 'd been and had hooked her onto the rush it was jumping off of things... Buildings, bridges, cliffs... You name it, the kid had jumped it. She'd tried it one time, more from the idea of it going wrong and ending up with a face full of asphalt... that way atleast, she wouldn't have to feel so much pain, run away from so many things so many times of the day... So she'd put on the harness and jumped. And at the age of 18, Parker had promptly fallen in love.

Everybody who knew her now would probably guess that money was her first and only love. She understood that she'd come across as a hugely crazy person but what she was, was grossly insecure. She'd never had enough of anything during her childhood days... be it food, clothing, people or love. And as she'd grown up and realized the way things worked in this world, she'd understood the value of money.

Money for her had come to mean security. She needed money so that she could feel safe. Not because she wanted to use it to buy things for herself. Most things that people coveted, had never seemed important enough to Parker. Diamonds and jewellery were an exception though... she was a girl after all. If somehow, someday the equation turned and she knew she could feel safe, secure and happy by giving away her money, she would give it all. Okay.. maybe not happily give it all away but she would do it.

The green banknotes held only one angle of importance to Parker. They provided her with the feeling of security that she'd seldom had in her life. But try as she might, she couldn't get the freedom she craved because of them. That feeling, or as close to feeling safe as she could had been got mostly when she was jumping off the highest building around, feeling the wind rush through her hair, arms spread wide open, trusting in herself and her equipment... before feeling as well as hearing the braking mechanism kick in, slowing down her descent, finally pulling her to a stop.

That day when she'd learnt the pure ecstasy that was rappelling, was the day Parker's life began again. Now she had something to work towards, something to help her escape her mental as well as physical prisons and something that had freed a small portion of her heart that had remained locked away for a long, long time. That was the start of a beautiful relationship between Parker and the ropes. She started to train aggressively, trying to learn and understand the mechanism behind the whole thing, trying to duplicate the equipment while changing it to suit her purposes. She'd trained herself both mentally and physically for three whole years before she knew she was ready.

This had opened up a whole new world of possibilities for Parker and now, she was ready. With the impressive repertoire of skills she'd learnt from Archie, she dedicated herself into the art of thievery full-time, needing the rush it gave her, the notoriety it brought her... assuaging the need to prove to herself and the world that she was better than the rest of them at something. In a few short years, Parker's name was among the elite in her business and that was how, at the young age of 26, she'd been recruited into a team calling themselves Leverage Associates.

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><p><em><strong>AN: So there it is... a new chapter in a new story. Unless I am completely mistaken, this one's gonna be Parker's POV all the way.**_

_**Please review your thoughts and ideas... :)**_

_**Lotsa luv and Chocolate Almond Biscotti**_

_**Macybear**_


	2. Chapter 2

_**A/N: Here's the next chapter of Not Alone... To all the people who read and reviewed the last chapter... thank you so much. :)**_

_**I am working on faster updates and more regular uploads for my other stories too... Please bear with me while I work something out with RL. Thanks for your patience in advance. :)**_

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><p> At first, she'd been leery of working as part of a team. All of them were thieves in one way or another and being a thief, you developed a paranoia about a lot of things in life. She'd only consented due to curiosity at some of the members and the money that had been offered. She'd heard about a couple of the people involved in her professional circle and she'd been quite curious as to what kind of people they were. She knew right from the start that working together was just going to be a disaster. And she'd been right... and wrong. The first part of it, things had gone well and just when they were about to be lulled into a sense of security, the floor had dropped out from under them...<p>

The money they had been working towards had disappeared from in front of their hands and eyes, plus they'd all just barely escaped with their hides intact from an explosion. Of the whole lot, Parker had probably been the most disappointed and the angriest at the development. She'd learnt it the hard way to not trust anything and anyone and there was no way some one cheated her out of the money she'd worked for. But then, their planner or mastermind as he called himself, the older guy Nathan Ford, had called the group back in, and this time, he'd promised a bigger plan... a bigger payout.

Against their better judgement, they'd added another member to their group, a grifter named Sophie Devereaux, who it seemed had some sort of history with Nate. Not that Parker could confidently say that because, she'd always been extremely awkward when it came to relationships. Human interactions were not her forte and Parker knew that very well. So, when Sophie had acted her way out situation after situation flawlessly, no matter how badly she'd acted on stage, Parker had started to develop a startling amount of respect for the older woman. Sophie also took Parker under her wing, often explaining things that Parker found weird or unnatural, that were normal for everyone else.

After the success of their first plan, all of them had received pay-offs that could probably set them up for the rest of their lives... Not Parker. She already had enough money stashed in safe houses around the world to run several third world countries, but one could never have enough money... Or that's what Parker thought. While the rest of the group had spent some of their money on things they'd wanted or bought places they'd liked, Parker had just converted her share to gold (more for easy transportation than for any love of gold... she loved the green of banknotes much more than any other color) and stored another stash in a safe house... this time in San Francisco.

They'd all thought that it would be a one time job... But had been pleasantly surprised when they'd been called back. Meeting the group again hadn't been as uncomfortable as she'd thought it would be... And some of her favorite personal memories came from the job... Ahhh... She could never forget the sweet surprise of finding the crate full of cash... And the horror she'd felt at having to give it away... just give it back. That had taken some time for her to digest... voluntarily giving money away to someone else after having worked hard to get it in the first place.

But giving the money to the hospital had made Parker feel something that she'd almost never felt before when she wasn't robbing some priceless treasure from some unsuspecting rich guy... happiness. She'd never felt happiness while giving away money before... maybe because she'd never given it away before... but that was beside the point. Maybe there was something in this 'good guys' thing. Maybe they could give it more tries and see if it worked out the same way all the time.

They'd all known at the end of that job that while they were all fooling themselves that they might work a job or two more together, given a chance, they would love to do this more and more often. Thus, what had been a rag-tag bunch of individuals, each specially talented in their own area, had become a team... and lately they'd become something more... a lot more.

Sophie had already started forging a friendship with Parker and soon, Nate had become her go-to guy. The two older people had effortlessly donned the mantles of pseudo - parents in their team of misfits that fit so well together. Parker had somehow, when she hadn't been looking, hadn't known, fit into this weird family. And it still astonished her to this day what the small group of people had brought into her life.

To the parents played by Sophie and Nate, Hardison was the geeky, talkative man-child whose orange soda obsession was almost as bad as his obsession for all things electronic. Alec Hardison had undergone some of the same situations as she had in his life but had ended up with completely different results.

Even though he'd been in the system and grown up in foster homes, once he'd been found by Nana, his foster mother, he'd led an almost normal life that she couldn't even dream of. So, though Hardison thought that she and him were alike in a lot of aspects, he couldn't be more wrong. But there was something to be said about the fact that while most of the rest of the team were still bewildered by her antics, Hardison had been the first one to try and understand her.

On the other hand, there was Eliot Spencer - the gruff, rough and reticent retrieval specialist. At first glance, he'd seemed just like another dumb hunk of muscle... someone who fought more with his fists than his brains. But boy!... had she been wrong about that. Eliot Spencer had proven to be even more complicated than she was... and Parker knew that she was as complicated as they came.

In hindsight, she should've seen it coming clearly from miles and miles away but she knew that her only excuse was that she had wantedly been blind to anything involving emotions... they were unnecessary in her life, their line of work and just plain messy. But now as she turned around to look at the relaxed sleeping form of the man who graced her bed tonight and every other night, she could only marvel at the changes that had been wrought in both their lives by time and circumstances.

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><p><em><strong>AN: So there it is... another chapter done. **_

_**Please tell me what you thought of it... your suggestions and ideas are incredibly important. So don't forget to click that little review button and send me your thoughts.**_

_**Lotsa luv and Chocolate cookie sandwiches**_

_**Macybear**_


	3. Chapter 3

_**A/N:Hello again... Next chapter is here. Hope this tides you guys over till I can resume work on this and other stories of mine... :)**_

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><p><em><em>They had started out on opposite sides of the team. She'd almost left the team half a dozen times because of him and he might've just restrained himself from wringing her neck as many times as well. The two of them had just not clicked... ironic, because now she couldn't think of her life without him in it. There was no one in this world who understood her better, who gave her the independence to be herself while also giving her the security that she'd never had before in her life.

But that had not been the way she'd felt when she'd first started working with him. It had been a regular cat and dog thing between them, the only thing they could agree on was that they wanted to kill Nate for making them work together so many times. But it had to be done... they were the thief and the hitter... the retrieval specialists of the team. Parker had no doubts about Eliot's abilities to protect her and the merchandise, the same way Eliot never doubted her ability to actually steal the merchandise... but that didn't mean they had to get along with each other.

But it had changed... slowly but surely, it had... he had changed her. She had changed him too, in ways he hadn't even thought she would... or anyone could, for that matter. The continuous connection of pulling jobs together had given them the much needed understanding of each other... not that either of them would admit to it even under torture.

But they had to face the facts... they knew each other. The facts that were important... not the hows, the whys and the wherefore's, which really didn't matter. They knew what made the other tick, but not why it made them tick or how it did so... and neither of them cared. Which, ironically proved to be a blessing for their evolving relationship.

Both Eliot and Parker had been lone wolves too long to really give up control to another person or let themselves open to some sort of hurt, physical or psychological, without their bodies and minds reacting and clamoring to get them to safety. The need to maintain a semblance of control over everything about them had proved to be both a stepping stone as well as a huge hindrance in their relationship. But like everything they'd ever attempted, they'd come through... mostly by sheer doggedness on Eliot's part and a lot of courage on hers.

For her, someone who'd learnt the hard way that trusting people was a surefire way to disaster, trusting Eliot enough to let him in, to let him see the real Parker had been probably the most difficult thing. She'd labored over the decision for almost a month, which was an incredibly long time for her impulsive self, but in the end, it had been unnecessary. Eliot Spencer had proved to her exactly why he was so special. He'd already figured her out, just like she'd started to understand the simple yet complicated man he was.

The decision to become friends had been a huge stepping stone in their relationship... the courage it took to take that step and open up to someone else, reveal secrets and details of their lives no one else knew, was such that everything else that came afterwards would be a breeze in comparison. Parker wouldn't admit it, but she'd worried that becoming involved with one of her team might make it difficult... different during jobs. But after she'd consciously made the decision to be Eliot's friend, she'd found that neither he nor she reacted to each other in any way that was extremely different from before.

Granted, he paid a little more attention to her than everyone else and vice versa, but that was to be expected if whatever she'd learnt from Sophie about relationships was true.

In fact, sometimes during the time they were only friends, nothing more, Parker had almost been disappointed with the lack of anything else in the relationship. Spencer had seemed perfectly content with letting her dictate the pace and status of their relationship and for the first time in her life, Parker wasn't really enjoying the freedom the situation offered. Mainly because she had no idea what to do or say to change the current situation or even if she wanted to change anything just then.

They'd just become comfortable around each other in a faintly emotional sense... meaning he'd stopped freaking out if she just went off on one of her incoherent rambles and just silently if slightly impatient, waited for her to start making sense before he passed judgement. And she'd stopped flinching everytime anyone mentioned family or friends.

They'd even started working together quite well in the kitchen. He recruited her as his kitchen staff and she learned everything that he wanted to teach her. She no longer demanded... she'd learnt to ask - that too in a rather sweet manner that always managed to melt his resistance to whatever junk food she was usually asking for. No mistake... he still grumbled quite a bit but she'd almost perfected the puppy dog look and he knew just what she was getting away with but couldn't quite bring himself to care.

To say that things had changed slowly, but surely would be an accurate description of their situation. In fact, things had changed so slowly and so subtly that it had altogether escaped the notice of the rest of their team... who were some of the best thieves and insurance investigator in the world. Not that it was in any way disconcerting to the duo. The hitter and the thief were quite content to explore their new found relationship in the background, out of the spotlight that they knew they would garner if either of their team members found out.

And so it was... for almost six months of cooking lessons, rappelling sessions, sky diving and horse riding lessons, sparring and yoga sessions in the gym, evenings spent just sitting on the rooftop with bottles of beer and an up close and personal introduction to Bunny.

Things were near perfect, their understanding of each other had reached previously uncharted heights and it showed in their work. Previously, where they'd needed verbal or physical signals, however small they might've been, now they just needed to look at each other. This however was noticed by the rest of the team and heavily commented on before they all came to terms with the fact that the hitter and the thief had somehow managed to make it work and had become what you called, friends.

They'd achieved a happy medium... two people who were secure in the fact that they knew almost everything there was to know about each other and that anything else which might come to light at a later stage would be assimilated without passing any sort of judgement. For both Eliot as well as Parker, this was the first human relationship of its kind and they were simultaneously relieved at the freedom and anxious about the longevity of it. But for now, they were comfortable and... almost happy.

But of course this is real life... not a fairy tale. No one lives happily ever after... and most of the dragons that you have to slay never fight fair. There was only one way of fighting in the real world and that was the fight for survival. So something absolutely had to happen to upset this applecart... this happy balance they'd achieved. And it did.

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><p><em><strong>AN: So there it is... another chapter done.**_

_**Hope you guys liked it... This fic is gonna mostly be in the past tense... I've tried to dabble with a slightly older, more mature Parker's perspective. You might have to put up with my rambling at times... Inspiration is a little hard to come by these days. I have no idea where my muse has disappeared :( **_

_**So as it stands, I would love to listen to your opinions and thoughts on this and other fics of mine. Any ideas for fics (both existing and new ones) will be welcomed with open arms :)**_

_**Don't forget to review... reviews are like a cup of hot chocolate with mini marshmallows on top during a cold December night.**_

_**Lotsa luv and Viennese finger cookies**_

_**Macybear**_


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